rec.autos.simulators

Robot Auto Racing Simulation (RARS) Mailing List Digest 19950806

The rars-digest is a compilation of choice cuts from the RARS mailing list.
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Contents

  authors addresses
  Anyone using WinRARS?
  Replies to WinRARS Qs
  RARS 0.62 for Watcom C++ 10.0
  Yet another WinRARS
  Re: How to specify cars used
  Design reveiw: Where other cars are on the track

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:             "Mitchell E. Timin" <m...@cac.psu.edu>
Subject:          authors addresses
To:               rars-l...@netcom.com (Rars- List)
Date sent:        Sat, 29 Jul 1995 09:46:57 -0400 (EDT)

Hello Rartians,

Last week we had a disappointing turnout of novices for the oval track
races.  I hope we can get more for next Sunday's road races.  It would
be good if someone wants to encourage or invite some of our past
participants to compete again.  Here are the addresses of almost all of
our past competitors.

Heath - Patrick Tierney <g2ka...@cdf.toronto.edu>
Rusty - BENE...@RoseVC.Rose-Hulman.Edu
Rob - r...@bigb.stortek.com (Rob Creager x2365)
Ramdu - sa...@phoenix.phoenix.net (Randy Saint)
Blender - cbu...@mitre.org (Carl D. Burke)
Indretti - n...@cris.com (Mike Inman)
Burns - Safai Ma <bg...@freenet.toronto.on.ca>
WappuCar and Bubble - Jussi Pajala <jus...@stekt12.oulu.fi>
Emily - Tim Battersby <af...@cfn.cs.dal.ca>
Bingo - Tristrom Cooke <tco...@maths.adelaide.edu.au>
racer_X - Muir Lee Harding <l...@autodesk.com>
Piranha and IndyMan - ree...@lucifer2.cs.waikato.ac.nz
goCART - Thomas Rooney <troo...@falcon.depaul.edu>
Bacon - BCABE <Bc...@cris.com>
JayMan1 - dos...@physics.umr.edu (George Doster)
Marvin - Nicole.Grei...@FernUni-Hagen.de (Nicole Greiber)
Phase - n...@math.berkeley.edu (Nathaniel Thurston)
OscCar - y92os...@isy.liu.se (Oscar Gustafsson)
JXBot3 - JXi...@aol.com (Jeremy Weatherford)
Carski - se...@chester.lerc.nasa.gov (Robert Skupinski)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date sent:        Mon, 31 Jul 95 11:01:48 PDT
From:             Muir Lee Harding <l...@autodesk.com>
Subject:          Anyone using WinRARS?
To:               rars-l...@netcom.com

Just wondering if anyone has tried using my windows port of RARS or compiled
any drivers as dlls. I'd like to start hosting a race series, but I don't
have Borland and I prefer drag-and-drop to re-linking.

If you'd like to have your driver compiled into a dll, I can do so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date sent:        Tue,  1 Aug 95 09:22:00 PDT
From:             Muir Lee Harding <l...@autodesk.com>
Subject:          Replies to WinRARS Qs
To:               rars-l...@netcom.com

For the benifit of the rest of the list:

I think the key to building dlls is in the linker, not the compiler. If your
system uses a librarian to produce .lib files, then it is very likely that it
can also make dlls (same process). I haven't used VB lately, but every other
system I've seen that produces windows apps, can also make dlls. I'd be very
interested in hearing of you have success using VB, let me know how it goes!

There is not a size limit on the drivers, the reason that I didn't include
WappuCar in the last upload is that it had to be linked against the entire
RARS tree (wappu uses data directly from some of the rars modules). If a
driver uses the situation exclusively to get info, it will weight in at
about 30k, WappuCar was ~300k.

When did you download it? I posted a new version not too long ago that fixed
a couple of problems with the command-line processing. I think the newest
version was built on July 21st.

<<Note: After writing the above I realized that this must have been the newer
version, the old one had a grey background.>>

Nope, all drivers may apply. Along these lines - It would be quite simple
for me to add in support for 'teams' that would alow a pair (or more) of
drivers to exchange information. Would anyone be interested?

Your driver should run fine as a dll, with two small changes that don't
affect the control functions in any way: first, it shouldn't (but can if it
uses the following fix) call my_name_is() - winrars just uses the name of
the dll; second, if the driver makes use of the data segment provided by
rars (s.data_ptr) or my_name_is(), then it _must_not_ use a static
initialization flag. A better method that will accomplish the same thing is
to use 'if (s.to_lft == s.to_rgt == 1.0)' (which also works in DOS RARS),
instead of the traditional 'if (init_flag)'.

If you'd like, I can compile the driver into a dll for you, and return the
code with any changes that are required.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date sent:        Wed, 2 Aug 1995 01:42:51 -0700 (PDT)
From:             Russell Bornsch+ <kal...@rahul.net>
To:               Rars-List <rars-l...@netcom.com>
Subject:          RARS 0.62 for Watcom C++ 10.0

Since I couldn't find my Borland C++ disks, I did a quick port of RARS
0.62 to the Watcom C++ environment (my development environment of
choice). If anyone's interested, I can put this on the RARS FTP site or
something. I haven't tested it extensively at all, just ran the default
race once tonight after getting it to compile. About the only things that
changed were the graphics routines. Points to Mr. Timin for portability,
though it did generate hundreds of warnings...

I'm very new to the RARS scene, but now I can write car AIs. I expect to
be joining the race meets very soon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date sent:        Wed,  2 Aug 95 16:29:14 PDT
From:             Muir Lee Harding <l...@autodesk.com>
Subject:          Yet another WinRARS
To:               "Mitchell E. Timin" <m...@cac.psu.edu>, rars-l...@netcom.com

Hi All,

I've uploaded yet another update of WinRARS to
ftp://ftp.best.com/pub/ijs/uploads. The biggest addition to this version is
a toolbar, and better support for Windows 3.1 (no more blank screens). The
.txt file is included below for details...

If you need Win32s I now have a couple URLs that serve it up!

RARS FOR WINDOWS VERSION 1.2 BETA!

Contents:
--------
winrars.zip    - Contains winrars.exe
winrars.exe  - Executable for Win3.1 w/ Win32s, and for WinNT (x86)

Summary:
-------
Yet another update! RARS The .63b patches have been incorporated. The
RARS command-line optional are disabled in this build -- hopefully,
I will be integrating all of the RARS options into the GUI soon.
The default drivers are no longer being built-in, so you will have
to load them from dlls. A toolbar has been added. Misc small bugs
nuked.

Quick Start:
-----------
Run winrars.exe, then drag-and-drop the drivers dlls that you
want to run from the filemanager, then select FILE | RUN RACE.
Repeat as desired.

Notes:
-----
WinRARS requires Win32s to run under Windows 3.1.

Known Bugs:
----------
1) Under Win3.1 rars is single-threaded, so the UI thread cannot
be started. This means that once the race begins, you can't
interact anymore (no instrument panel, options, or abort...).

New Features:
------------
Toolbar for selecting designated driver(NT), track, laps & races
Dynamic loading of DLL-based drivers.
Resizable Window (before the race begins)
Multiple races per session (NT & Win3.1)
Drag-and-Drop (drivers)

On tap:
------
Drag-and-Drop (tracks)
Improvements to the GUI:
Include all RARS options
Re-order for drivers
Selective driver replacement

Questions? Comments?:
--------------------
l...@autodesk.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:             JXi...@aol.com
Date sent:        Wed, 2 Aug 1995 15:15:08 -0400
To:               rars-l...@netcom.com
Subject:          Re: How to specify cars used

In a message dated 95-08-02 01:17:14 EDT, Shad Augenstien

In the Makefile, near the top, there's a list of cars.  It's setting some
variable, I don't remember which.  Maybe "OBJS" or possibly "CARS".  If your
car is called foobar.cpp, just add foobar.o to that list.
Then, and here's the tricky part, open up carz.cpp.  Page down a ways until
you see a whole bunch of lines like:
robot FooBar1;
robot FooBar2;
Just add the *name of your driver's function* here, with robot in front,
followed by a semicolon.  Then, just below this, should be a list declaring a
large static array.  It starts out witht the driver's name, followed by two
indexes into a color array, and then a (char *) NULL.  For some reason, RARS
only allows 16 cars.  This array should have 16 entries.  At the end, there's
probably 1 or more cars named "Dynamic".  You probably want to replace one of
these.  Just type your drivers *name* over the "Dynamic".  You may want to
change the color indices.

The default compiling should handle it fine, if not, go to the end of the
Makefile, where you'll find a list of the rules for making cars.  Add your
car there, compiling however you need to.  Then I assume you know about the
-d option.  If not, try "rars /?" for information about it.

Note the differentiation (sp? :) between your driver's source file, and your
driver's name.  For example, my driver's name is JXBot3.  This is what the
driver function is called, and that's what it calls mynameis() with.  I put
"JXBot3" in carz.cpp.  jxbot3.cpp is the name of the source file, so that's
what goes in the Makefile.

Clear as mud?  :D
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date sent:        Thu, 3 Aug 1995 16:20:41 -0400
To:               rars-l...@netcom.com
From:             augenstei...@osu.edu (Shad Augenstein)
Subject:          Design reveiw: Where other cars are on the track

I just got into RARS a week ago and I've been reading the tutorials and
Digests to catch up.  One thing I noticed is that Collisions are becoming
all that more important.  I also noticed that the only way to tell if you're
going to hit someone is by a boolean variable, not very realistic.  Also,
the only other cars you know about are the three closest "in-front" of you.
As someone else pointed out, your car has no mirrors nor side
windows.  What I suggest is that you know the position of everycar on the
track, and the velocities of those right around you.  My reasoning is that
in normal driving you can see all the cars around you and know very well
what their position is relative to you.  This is just a natural ability that
comes with knowing how to drive a car.  As for the cars not around you, most
drivers have a crew, and they're linked by radio to that crew.  So if they
want to know about where another car is that they can't see, they can ask
the crew.
It doesn't seem like it'd be a lot of trouble to impliment this, and
it would help a lot in 1. Not running into other cars, and 2. Making racing
decisions, for example, their's three laps left and I'm two laps behind the

# Dave "Gizmo" Gymer  dgy...@gdcarc.co.uk  http://www.mal.com/~dgymer/
/* Plug and Play? More like Plug and Pray! */